Jay from across the hall left last night. He was in a room full of crazy Mexican dudes, and so they dubbed him a member of Colonia, Newbury Park Chapter. He's got a buddy who's in furlough also, who happens to have the badge number 69. His haircut is that of Kelly Osbourne, and his father owns the company that wrote Morpheus, so all eyes were already on him for a variety of reasons. Scrawny white kid, I joked with Chris that he had to be busted for possession of something. He's easy to overlook, but a very impressive trait of his came on display last night.

As I'm a step outside of my room, I see Derrick walking by. Ahead of us were Jay and his buddy (named Adam) heading out to the smoking area. I pull Derrick aside and also beckon my two bunkies to come with me to the smoking area. It's a concrete walkway that connects the main residence hall to the chow hall. It's lined with a chain link fence, on which coffee cans are used as ashcans.

We arrive, and I'm already privvy to Adam's up-to-now secret ability. We tell Josh to drop a beatbox beat. All of a sudden Adam starts freestyle rapping with such tremendous velocity. Faster than Young MC, just some really amazing shit. Everyone was duly impressed, and even Bullet stopped calling him "Jay's Boy" in favor of a more respectful moniker, "69". After he finished busting his first flow, I quipped that he got busted for lyrical assassination.

It eventually evolved into an all out MC battle there on the smoking area, with Adam the clear winner when he declared that his rhymes would "make you sick like you ate Shamu's afterbirth." I stood on that bridge, and stared north past the chain link fence and to the twinkle of lights of the 101 in the distance. The air around me had a pleasant mix of nicotine and mirth.